If you’re looking for a new show to binge-watch, we have your answer right here: Nine Perfect Strangers. Based on The New York Times bestselling book by Liane Moriarty, the series’ initial (and obvious) draw is its stellar cast, which includes Nicole Kidman as a mind/body/soul guru and Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Luke Evans, Bobby Cannavale, Regina Hall, and Samara Weaving as wellness-seeking city dwellers looking for a break from their hectic lives. Upon closer inspection, however, there is something more to love- a soundtrack composed by Golden Globe and two-time Oscar-nominee Marco Beltrami (Hurt Locker, Free Solo, Scream franchise), and Miles Hankins (Being Serena).
Nine Perfect Strangers takes place at a boutique health-and-wellness resort that promises healing and transformation. Led by the resort’s director, Masha (Kidman), she helps guide the nine stressed-out guests toward a better way of living. Masha may seem like a woman on a mission to reinvigorate their tired minds and bodies, but quickly we learn that not everything is as it seems.
The basis of the show is steeped in psychological instability, and the score reflects that uneasiness in its varying melodic and intensely dissonant tone. Cinemacy is thrilled to share an exclusive first listen of the track “Test Pilots.”
Nine Perfect Strangers marks Beltrami’s fourth musical collaboration with director Jonathan Levine (Long Shot, Warm Bodies, The Night Before), but repetition isn’t something he is concerned about, noting, “I love him as a director because his projects always seem to examine the human condition from radically different angles and this inspires innovation in the score.”
When talking about what to expect in the series’ soundtrack – which releases on Lakeshore Records this Friday – Beltrami says the score “ranges from textural synthesis and at times cacophonous sound design, to overtly tuneful moments. This is reflected through the instrumentation which includes string quartet and piano with an electronic score.”
Hankins went on to say, “We wanted the score to underpin it all with a sense of uncertainty and experimented with layering different musical ideas, recording them to tape, and then altering the speed or pitch of certain elements to varying degrees. At times, the result gives some of the cues a meditative or otherworldly feeling.”
The Hulu Original series directed by Jonathan Levine premieres on August 18 with three episodes. Endeavor Content and Lakeshore Records are releasing the Nine Perfect Strangers—Original Series Soundtrack digitally on August 20.
